A Generalisation of the Capstan Equation and a Comparison Against Kikuchi and Oden's Model for Coulomb's Law of Static Friction

Abstract: In this article, we extend the capstan equation to non-circular geometries. We derive a closed form solution for a membrane with a zero Poisson's ratio (or a string with an arbitrary Poisson's ratio) supported by a rigid prism (at limiting-equilibrium case and in steady-equilibrium case) or supported by a rigid general cone (at limiting-equilibrium case only). Our models indicate that the stress profile of the elastic body depends on the change in curvature of the rigid obstacle at the contact region. As a comparison, we extend Kikuchi and Oden's model for Coulomb's law of static friction to curvilinear coordinates, and conduct numerical experiments to examine the properties of Coulomb's law of static friction implied by Kikuchi and Oden's model in curvilinear coordinates and implied by our generalised capstan equation. Our numerical results indicate that for a fixed coefficient of friction, the frictional force is independent of the Young's modulus of the elastic body, and increasing the curvature, increasing the Poisson's ratio and decreasing the thickness of the elastic body increases the frictional force. Our analysis also shows that for given a tension ratio, the coefficient of friction inferred by each model is different, indicating that the implied-coefficient of friction is model dependent.